Shadow Safeguarding Board

We currently meet once a month. We talk about the services in Bristol that are working to protect us and what we think could be done better. We use our voice to make sure the adults in the KBSP keep children and young people at the heart of designing services. It is a place where professionals can hear children and young people’s issues and concerns around safety.

Sometimes we invite senior members of Bristol City Council, Avon and Somerset Police, and the Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (health) to our meetings to find out what they are doing to help children and young people in Bristol. We attend Keeping Children Safe meetings, Executive meetings, and go to events to talk about our projects and influence how children are kept safe in Bristol. 

We always need new members on the board. If you are interested, please contact: kbsp.shadow@bristol.gov.uk 

Recent Projects

• First Response secret shopping: 

In 2021, the Shadow Board undertook a Mystery Shopping exercise to test how First Response supports children and young people to make referrals about themselves, their families, and their peers. This first report was highlighted as a great example of strategic safeguarding, and so in 2022 the project was repeated to test the changes that had been made as a result of the initial report.

The 2022 report can be found here.

The initial 2021 report can be found here . 

• Poetry Competition

In December 2021, the Shadow Safeguarding Board held a poetry competition to hear from children and young people what a safe city means to them.

All entries were incredibly emotional and were performed at our Participation Guidance in Education and Youth Settings even in March 2022. Sarah Parker, our interim Director for Children's Service wrote to each young person that entered to thank them for their poems. 

The winner was Finn Roberts. Finn is 13 years old, he has autism and is non-verbal. Finn writes all of his poetry using a letter board and pointing to each letter individually. Finn has recently learned how to use a voice tablet to help him communicate, which enabled him to present his own poem at the event in March.

Finn met with our Mayor, Marvin Rees, and Sarah Parker, and has his poem displayed in City Hall.

• Are You OK? workshop

The Shadow Board ran the Are you OK? workshop in February 2021 to discuss the mental health of children and young people during the COVID pandemic. The Shadow Board have written a report following the workshop. A summary of the full report can be found here.

In response to this, an event was held in March 2022 to launch the KBSP Participation in Education and Youth Settings guidance and training package to support education and youth settings to hear the voice of children and young people.

• Communication Strategy

The Shadow Board have written a Communication Strategy which has been signed off by the Executive of the Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership. The Communication Strategy has been rolled out for the whole of children's services to use as a point of reference when they engage with children and young people. 

• Interviewing new staff for roles within the KBSP

The Shadow Board have always been involved in interviewing for staff roles within the KBSP. We are looking at creating a training package with Corporate Parenting for young people who are undertaking interviews to ensure there is no conscious or unconscious bias.

National groups:

Young People's Board for Change | NSPCC

Other local groups:

Here is Barnardo's Hype Health Manifesto